3 UN workers among 11 killed in Boko Haram attack in Nigeria

By HARUNA UMAR and JAMEY KEATEN

Mar. 02, 2018

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — Three workers for United Nations agencies were among 11 people killed in an attack by armed Boko Haram militants on a military base in northeastern Nigeria, near the border with Cameroon, U.N. officials said Friday.

The International Organization for Migration said "a large number" of Boko Haram members attacked the base in Rann, in Borno state, a day earlier with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and gun trucks.

At a U.N. briefing in Geneva, IOM spokesman Joel Millman said the two staffers, Ibrahim Lawan and Yawe Emmanuel, were among three humanitarian workers killed along with eight members of police and the military. The U.N.'s humanitarian aid coordinating agency, OCHA, says a third aid worker killed was a medical doctor consulting for UNICEF.

IOM Director of Operations and Emergencies Mohammed Abdiker said in a statement that the agency was "outraged and saddened" by the killings. The two IOM staffers were contractors working in a camp for 55,000 internally displaced people who have fled conflict in the region.

U.N. officials say the humanitarian crisis in northeastern Nigeria is one of the worst in the world, with more than 7.5 million people in need of assistance. Some 3,000 aid workers with the world body, its agencies and NGOs are providing aid to some 6.1 million people in the region.